Bacon & Lawrence Join X-MEN: FIRST CLASS Cast

THR’s Heat Vision is reporting that Jennifer Lawrence, the actress who’s been getting rave reviews for her work in WINTER’S BONE, has been cast as Mystique in Fox’s X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. They go on to say that 20th Century Fox  and director Matthew Vaughn have been furiously casting the movie, which focuses on Marvel’s superpowered team X-Men in a younger incarnation than the previous trilogy.

The role is a big jump in terms of exposure for Lawrence, who is generating awards buzz for WINTER’S BONE, and also marks her first studio feature. The actress is about to topline thriller THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET, which begins production in Ottawa in August, and will then segue to England for X-MEN.

Kevin Bacon is playing the villain, but as of now his identity is a tightly guarded secret. Ahhh Damn. This keeps Bacon from the next TREMORS movie that I was SOOO counting on, TREMORS: THE THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER.

Before Charles Xavier ( James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-MEN.

Nicholas Hoult, Alive Eve, Caleb Landry Jones and Aaron Johnson also star. Conceived by Bryan Singer, written by Jane Goldman, and directed by Matthew Vaughn (KICK-ASS), X-MEN: FIRST CLASS begins shooting in London later this summer and will be in theaters on June 3, 2011.

Source: Heat Vision/The Hollywood Reporter